in 1731. But on the landing of Prince Charles in Scotland in 1745, the indomitable chief for the third time risked his life and estate in the cause of the Stewarts. Owing, however, to his great age he was unable to lead his clan in person, and in consequence escaped the vengeance of the government. He died in peace in his own house in Rannoch, April, 1749. Robertson's poems were published surreptitiously, by means of a servant who stole his papers. "They are always very stupid," says Lord Macaulay, "and often very profligate. But they attracted some notice on account of the situation of the writer; for one hundred and twenty years ago an eclogue or a lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent."—J. T.
ROBERTSON, Frederick William, M.A., late incumbent of Trinity chapel, Brighton, was born 3rd February, 1816, in London, at the house of his grandfather, Colonel Robertson. His father was Captain Frederick Robertson of the royal artillery, and he was the oldest of a family of four sons, two of whom chose the profession of their father, and distinguished themselves in the Caffre war. When about nine years of age he was sent to the grammar-school of Beverley in Yorkshire, and a few years afterwards accompanied his parents to the continent, where he acquired a perfect knowledge of French, while still diligently prosecuting his classical studies. In 1832, when in his sixteenth year, he was placed in the Edinburgh academy, then under the able rectorship of Archdeacon Williams, where he highly distinguished himself, and competed, all but successfully, with Mr. James Moncrieff, now lord advocate, for the highest honours of the school. The two eminent rivals conceived for each other the highest esteem and regard, which they continued to cherish through life. Speaking of what he was at that early period, his teacher afterwards remarked, when called to preach his funeral sermon, that "his temperament was delicate and excitable; his feelings generous and warm; his intellect keen and powerful, but restrained in action by a modesty which shunned publicity, and was averse to display of every kind. His principles, both moral and religious, were, even at that early period, firmly fixed; and my experience of his abilities, tendencies, and dispositions, was sufficient to enable me to augur everything favourable respecting his course as a man and a christian." At the end of a year he left the academy, and commenced attendance upon the philosophical classes of the university of Edinburgh, having for his private tutor for some time the Rev. Charles H. Terrot, now bishop of Edinburgh. He was at that time designed for the bar, but the study of law having failed to interest him, he formed the resolution to enter the army. No doubt the military traditions of his family had their influence in suggesting such a choice; but he afterwards confessed to "an unutterable admiration of heroic daring," and few men have ever been more alive to the imaginative aspect of the profession of arms—to the chivalry of war, "There is something worse than death," he exclaimed in his lectures on the Influence of Poetry. "Cowardice is worse; and the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse; and it is worse than death, aye, worse than a hundred thousand deaths, when a people has gravitated down into the creed that 'the wealth of nations' consists not in generous hearts ('Fire in each breast and freedom on each brow'), in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference of duty to life—not in men, but in silk and cotton, and something that they call 'capital.'" A man who could feel and think in this strain would have made a noble soldier, and for some time it seemed certain that he would enter upon a military career, for by the favour of King William IV., "upon whom his mother's family had some claims," he was placed upon the commander-in-chief's list for an early commission. But considerable delay intervened in the issue of the commission; and in the meanwhile the present bishop of Cashel, and others of his friends, represented to his father so strongly the superior claims and attractions of the christian ministry for a mind so deeply imbued as his son's with religious feeling, and so richly endowed with intellectual power, that he was induced to reconsider seriously the subject. Young Robertson himself expressed his willingness to abide by the decision of his father, whatever it should be. The result was, that he was entered at Brasenose college, Oxford, to commence his studies for the church. Only four days thereafter came information from the war office that a commission awaited him in the second regiment of dragoon guards. But the die was now cast, and, at twenty years of age, renouncing all the bright dreams of martial ambition, he settled down to the solemn and unexciting work of preparing himself by severe study and severer self-discipline for the warfare of a good soldier of Jesus Christ. So far as the carrying off of academic honours was concerned, his university career was in no way distinguished. Though assured by his tutors and the examiners of the lower school that he might hope to attain the highest honours if he would consent to go into the honour school, he was content to leave Oxford with a common degree, not, however, without having acquired the reputation of possessing abilities which would command distinction in any department of learning, art, or science to which he might devote himself. Among his college friends may be mentioned the celebrated Mr. Ruskin, of whom he always expressed the highest admiration, and with whose enthusiasm for art he had an ardent sympathy. And not less ardent was his love for the highest and purest order of poetry. Early in life he was an enthusiastic admirer of Wordsworth, and it is an affecting proof how constant and growing that early passion proved, that the very last of his public addresses, beyond the sphere of the pulpit, was a lecture on Wordsworth. In that brilliant performance he brings up a recollection of his college days, which may appropriately be cited here. He was still a student of Brasenose when Wordsworth went up to Oxford to receive his honorary degree. The poet's cause had been desperate once, but it was triumphant now. "Scarcely had his name been pronounced in the theatre, where all that was most brilliant, all that was most wise and most distinguished, was gathered together, than from three thousand voices at once there broke forth a burst of applause, echoed and taken up again and again, when it seemed about to die away, and that thrice repeated: a cry in which
' Old England's heart and voice unite,
Whether she hail the wine-cup or the fight,
Or bid each hand be strong, or bid each heart be light.' "
"There were young eyes there," he continues, and doubtless he means to say his own were among them," filled with an emotion of which they had no need to be ashamed. There were hearts beating with the proud feeling of triumph, that at last the world had recognized the merit of the man they had loved so long, and acknowledged as their teacher; and yet when that noise was protracted there came a reaction in their feelings, and they began to perceive that that was not after all the true reward and recompense for all that Wordsworth had done for England; it seemed as if all that noise was vulgarizing the poet; it seemed more natural and desirable to think of him afar off in his simple dales and mountains, the high-priest of nature, weaving in honoured poverty his songs to liberty and truth, than to see him there clad in a scarlet robe, and bespattered with applause. Two young men went home together part of the way in silence, and one but gave expression to the feelings of the other, when he quoted those well-known, trite, and often-quoted lines, lines full of deepest truth—
' The self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels
Than Cæsar, with a senate at his heels.' "
The incident opens a window in his young heart, and lets us see somewhat of its generous and high-souled throbbings; for no doubt he was himself one of those two deeply-smitten Wordsworthians, and it was doubtless also himself who quoted those lines of high disdain of an applause at once so unpoetically noisy and so long delayed. Soon after leaving Oxford he received orders from the bishop of Winchester, and accepted the curacy of St. Maurice and St. Mary Kalendar in the cathedral city of the diocese. At the end of a year's labour there he felt his strength decline, and was advised to take a trip to the continent to recruit. He visited Switzerland and the Tyrol, travelling a great deal on foot, and reaping the usual reward of such exertion in coming upon scenes of solitary grandeur and uncontaminated beauty, which only the pedestrian among the Alps can expect to behold. His recollections of these scenes often supplied him with eloquent illustrations in after days. Take the following as a specimen:—"I wish I could describe one scene which is passing before my memory at this moment, when I found myself alone in a solitary valley of the Alps without a guide, and a thunder storm coming on. I wish I could explain how every circumstance combined to produce the same feeling, and ministered to unity of impression—the slow, wild wreathing of the vapours round the peaks concealing their summits, and imparting in semblance their own motion, till each dark mountain form
